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7 Ways To Create a More Appealing Marketing Strategy for an IT Company

Nazira Konysbayeva — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 15:20:53 +0000

“Becoming a developer” is the new “becoming a banker”. The profession is fairly new, in-demand, and well-paying. Businesses are lining up for talented developers, and as of 2021, the global talent shortage of qualified IT workers is 40 million.

The companies are ready to offer work flexibility and decent pay. It would seem that with such great terms, high demand, and respect around the profession, IT services don’t need further promotion. However, supply increases along with demand. The industry is known for tough competition, as well as numerous newcomers. Everyone hoping to fit in needs to stand out – especially if you are promoting a remote developing team or agency, you need to articulate the advantages clearly.

This guide will explain how to do it the right way, what channels to use, and what trends to focus on. Also, check out examples from strong players for inspiration!

Market Research: Development and IT

Before implementing any marketing activity, you need to research the market and competitors. This will help you understand what niche is more profitable and what advantages you should emphasize the most.

Start by analyzing your closest competitors: teams that work for your target audience, stand on about the same level of popularity as you, promote their services in the same area, and, of course, offer similar services.

Analyze each team based on the SWOT model:

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

Apply this model to your company as well. Thus, you will make an objective comparison between yourself and other businesses and create a unique selling proposition. Some of the important questions to answer are: “What makes us better than our competitors? Why would people choose us specifically? “

Itransition, for example, emphasizes its impressive track record in international projects.

Kandasoft focuses on digital business transformation.

Kodius promises seasoned veterans that will solve customer problems.

In terms of positioning, it’s also important to keep track of the industry as a whole:

There are almost 27 million software developers worldwide, and there will be 27.7 million by 2023 and 28.7 million by 2024.

61% of HR professionals say that their biggest challenge is finding qualified developers.
Global IT spending is projected to exceed $4.5 trillion in 2022, up 5.5% from 2021.
Over the next ten years, the number of developers is expected to increase by 75%.
Tech startups raised $100 billion in investment just in Q3 2021.
46% of companies charge less than $20,000 for a basic development project. For general utility tasks, 61% of firms ask $20,000-$40,000.
53% of developers consider adapting to changing client requirements their biggest challenge. 17% of respondents mentioned continuous performance and load testing management. And 13% mentioned finding and hiring the right developers.
As for the types of projects, developers work on enterprise applications (84%), solutions for business process automation (53%), e-commerce products (38%), Big Data tools (30%), CRM (15%), and training programs (7%).
The leading industry trends are artificial intelligence (69%), blockchain (56%), Internet of Things (47%), Big Data (31%), cloud solutions (28%), augmented and virtual reality (26%), and cybersecurity (24%).

Strategies for Promoting Remote Development Teams and Agencies

Generally speaking, online promotion is the only viable strategy for developers. Offline channels can only be somewhat effective if you’re focusing on local businesses. This includes advertising in print media, on TV, outdoors, industry events to get contacts of potential customers.

The main advantage of development services is that they are not tied to one location. The only limitation is the language of client communication, nothing else. And if the team can communicate in different languages, the scope of potential clients expands further. Although communicating in English is the default for both developers and businesses. Fortunately, now there are many services providing legal and accounting solutions for international cooperation. So, the coverage only depends on the company’s goals and an effective marketing strategy.

It’s safe to assume that any IT company would want to work with interesting projects, loyal clients, and profitable solutions. Let’s take a look at tried and tested strategies for promoting IT services and finding these clients and projects.

Contextual Advertising

It’s practically impossible to look at a business and determine that it needs software development services. A clear demand is easier to work with.

Contextualadvertising in search engines allows you to display ads for relevant queries. For example, “app development” or “developer for business”.

Pros	Cons
The link to the landing page is guaranteed to be at the top of SERPs	Ad placements can be expensive because of high competition
No need to work on search engine optimization	Requires professional help to set up campaigns
You can narrow down audience targeting to the relevant services	Risk of click fraud by malicious bots
You already have potential customers that might be interested in the offer, you just need to convince them to take action

Website Promotion

Building and promoting your website is a must. It’s where you drive advertising traffic and collect leads. A website ultimately helps to improve your position in the search results for the long term. Maintaining an expert blog will help you get there. Fill the website with valuable, high-quality content, optimize for keywords you are interested in, regularly add new content. If you need a pro team for content creation, get in touch – we will be happy to help

Good material will build organic traffic gradually. One tactic to speed up the process is smart link building, which we will talk about later.

Pros	Cons
Relatively inexpensive	Organic promotion takes time and requires continuous effort
High-quality content will establish trust with the audience and increase conversion	Only top-quality content has a chance at the top, and you need a lot of resources to produce it
Your website belongs to you, so you don’t have to worry about it being blocked or deleted

Social Media and Targeted Advertising

Social media brings you closer to potential customers. This is where you can establish strong relationships: talk about behind-the-scenes of the company, employees, challenges, and wins. Experiment with different formats and reach new audiences. Ads will strengthen your organic presence and help you build a substantial subscriber base faster.

Pros

Cons

Freedom of expression and creativity

You are dependent on algorithms and updates

Collects hot leads and warms up the audience

Slow organic growth

Builds loyalty

Requires constant effort and experimenting

You can rely on customer support for certain issues

Guest Posting

Useful content isn’t only limited to a blog format. Your options include guest posting, expert commentary for industry media, and in-depth material with restricted access to collect leads.

The strategy attracts potential customers, builds loyalty, and brings quality links. Links incidentally affect the position in the search results (in a positive way).

Pros	Cons
Builds trust and expert status	You need to negotiate with each site separately and adapt to their requirements
Covers a potentially interested audience	It often takes a long time to get approved – up to several months
Material posted on high-traffic sites is more likely to reach the top of search results	Media websites usually close external links from indexing or refuse to add them at all
	Content can be removed or altered without notice Many resources charge a publication fee, which sometimes is unreasonably high

Catalogs and Business Review Websites

Before purchasing or hiring, customers often turn to rating aggregators. This way, they can assess the quality of services without bias based on independent reviews and specialist recommendations. That is why it is beneficial to register your business in catalogs, take part in rankings, fill out cards on relevant resources and review aggregators (Clutch, GoodFirms, Provenexpert, Youteam, Upfirms). While doing so, remember to monitor user feedback. This strategy is also useful for link building.

Pros	Cons
Expands your online presence	Keeping track of reviews on dozens of sites can be difficult
Build customer trust	You often have to pay to get included in rankings
Can be a source of high-quality external links	You need to purchase extended packages from these aggregators to generate fair attention
You only fill out cards once, and they work for you indefinitely

Email Marketing

There are several approaches to this method. The first is to collect user emails, warm them up with useful content, and convert them into buyers. The second is to send offers to the base of cold contacts.

This tactic can only work if you have strong, well-written texts and embed emails into the sales funnel correctly.

Pros	Cons
The strategy has the highest return on investment	You may end up in spam
It is convenient for segmenting the audience and addressing each group with a personalized message	It’s difficult to catch the attention of recipients
Many services offer testing tools and automated statistics collection, making it easier to optimize your strategy	Email services become an additional expense
You only fill out cards once, and they work for you indefinitely	Email is becoming less popular with the rise of instant messengers

Crowd Marketing

This is the last strategy for promoting an IT company – it is meticulous but can bring surprising results. Crowd marketing involves mentioning and placing links on relevant online resources: forums, Q&A services, social media, groups and communities, blog comments, etc.

Pros	Cons
It is free in most cases	It is hard to find relevant, suitable discussions
Native advertising works well	Some websites don’t allow adding clickable links
High-quality link building	The author’s rating is often very important and takes time to build up
There is a wide variety of websites and formats to choose from

These strategies work great together. Experiment with them and choose the ones that suit your budget and align with your goals (specifically, how quickly you want to achieve it.

Marketing Trends for IT in 2022

The target audience for IT companies is businesses. Your potential customers don’t need complex terms and descriptions of advanced technologies. Their interests lie in solving specific problems: optimizing processes, increasing revenue, and scaling up. You should speak the same language as your clients and consider the context of communication. In 2022 will, it will be important to simplify, personalize, and experiment more.

We want to highlight the following trends:

The growing popularity of video content, especially short-form. TikTok continues to change the Internet culture, and by now, light-hearted, funny videos have taken over social media. Users are getting used to an informal presentation of information, and B2B is no exception. IT agencies and developers become more involved in experimenting with the format, not only expanding reach but also collecting leads.
Personalization. Research potential customers, divide them into categories based on their requests, behavior, interests, line of work, etc. Build a sales funnel for each group and create personalized content. Businesses will appreciate relevant offers much more.
Simplified communication. It can be a struggle for some developers – to move away from dull tech content full of niche terms. This format should be left for communicating with colleagues or employees. But when talking with potential clients, you need to demonstrate the value and the result, not the subtleties of the process. Simplification is the future.
Visualization. Users become less and less interested in reading because it takes longer to process text. Charts, tables, infographics, and videos will help you to hold the attention.
Building relationships. Faceless organizations are not fit for 2022. Human connection has become more valuable, which is why companies tend to show their specialists and clients, collaborate with bloggers. It is easier to build a relationship when there is a person on the other end.

Examples of Successful Development Teams: What They Did Right

Goji Labs is the highest-ranked development studio. Here is what helped the company achieve these impressive results: a simple and compelling website, a helpful blog, and high rankings on field-specific platforms.

Goji’s closest competitor, Miquido, also boasts a well-made website with social proof, such as reviews, past projects, partner logos, as well as interesting content – both on the website and in the media. The brand also has a blog on Medium.

Sidebench relies on guest posting in major business publications: Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., and others. They also update their own blog, where they share expert knowledge and talk about their team.

Jelvix runs a great YouTube channel – Tech In 5 Minutes. The channel talks about technologies, the development market, and their own experience. These guys also have a professional-looking website and a corporate blog.

Summary: Marketing Plan For an IT Company

The demand for IT services is growing faster than the supply. However, if you want to create a constant flow of customers, you need to present your services competently and do proper promotion.

Remote development teams and agencies can use the following strategies:

Contextual advertising in search engines
SEO website promotion
Social media posts and ads
Content marketing
Catalogs, business review websites, ratings
Email marketing
Crowd marketing

If you’re a remote software development team, then you can probably guess the advantages of a remote content agency. Just like your clients hire you for your expert solutions, our clients hire us for our expert content. Our writers have the experience to create the type of content your company needs - from blog articles and press releases to case studies and white papers. Based on original research and purposeful cooperation, we will communicate the value and importance of your products or services. Ready for the top search positions? Leave us a request, and we’ll start strategizing!

Contenteam

Сообщение 7 Ways To Create a More Appealing Marketing Strategy for an IT Company появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

Cracking The STORYTELLING Code in Content

Victoria Michael — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 12:55:53 +0000

Сообщение Cracking The STORYTELLING Code in Content появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

7 Astonishing Formats to Cover in a Blog for an IT Company

Nazira Konysbayeva — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 09:49:10 +0000

In the context of ever-increasing competition in the IT market, companies go to great lengths to attract leads and, more importantly, convert them into customers. Many choose the long-term strategy, focusing on content marketing. However, some don’t know how to get the most out of it.

A corporate website is the storefront of the company and a powerful tool for a variety of purposes, allowing you to inform readers about your services and products.

These days, it’s important to offer your own corporate media directly on the site – an expert blog led by the company’s specialists. According to TechJury, it can increase website traffic by 434%. Moreover, a blog helps establish targeted lead generation, which brings you closer to the target audience and optimizes the marketing budget.

What Should You Blog About?

To start a corporate blog, you only need a few hours’ worth of a web developer’s work. Filling your blog with high-quality, useful content that highlights all the benefits of your business is much more difficult.

How do you figure out what topics to cover and what types of content to include in your blog content strategy? What kinds of articles do well in IT?

Below are seven best blog content ideas that you should definitely explore.

1. Case Studies

The main premise is: prospects are looking for a partner with a proven track record. If they are blind firing, i.e., googling IT companies, having no explicit recommendations from friends, it makes sense that they want to have proof of the company’s competence.

Case studies give you a perfect opportunity to showcase your expertise in real-life scenarios. Talk about how you solved a difficult problem, overcame all obstacles and fully met the client’s needs. This way, you’ll transform the blog into selling content.

Three principles for success:

As many details as possible (within reason)
Only true information about the project (recommendation: don’t be afraid to talk about failures during the project, turn them into stories about dealing with defeat, and make the case study truly valuable for the reader)
Real client testimonials (preferably, in video format).

2. Success Stories

Authenticity and mutual understanding are more relevant than ever. These terms used to describe only B2C companies, but today, many B2B projects are based on the same principles: customers avoid working with companies that don’t share their values.

That is why a few articles about the history and growth of the company will come in handy. You can even publish them as guest posts first on popular sites and get more eyes on your story. Additionally, it’s worth going beyond the Meet the Team page and use the blog content service in other ways – e.g., in the interview format with the founders and key team members.

Three principles for success:

Focusing on what makes the brand unique
Personal stories
Sharing values and mission

3. Niche Articles With a Clear Agenda

A tech blog that only covers general topics won’t make it easy to reach the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages = organic search results). On the other hand, narrow topics that focus on specific pain points of potential customers can actually bring leads to your site.

How do you implement this? Single out several most promising niches that your team can provide deep expertise on, identify the needs of potential customers and hit the target. For example, you can publish a series of articles about, let’s say, “Application of artificial intelligence in oil and gas industry,” and then adapt the ads for these articles to your target audience on social media.

Three principles for success:

The narrower the niche, the more effective the content
Emphasis on solving a specific problem for a potential customer
Segmenting content for target audiences that are most cost-efficient

4. Industry News

If you have already grown the blog and attracted an impressive audience, you can turn it into a media outlet and present industry news. First, it will help you generate extra site traffic (a lot of it!). Secondly, you will cover your audience’s need to get information about the latest events from third-party resources. This ultimately increases loyalty.

You can add the opinions of the company’s experts to make the blog content more diverse. But writing long articles isn’t worth it: key events with concise but illuminating comments work much better.

Three principles for success:

Writing and publishing content fast
Including only verified facts from reliable sources
No filler text

5. Press Releases

Continuing the topic of news and personal stories, sharing your own achievements is always a good idea for writing blog content. Press releases – short news excerpts – are typically published on third-party platforms like PRNewsWire. This helps a business reach a much wider audience.

After publication, you can also post a note on the company blog. This way, your customers and potential customers will understand that they are dealing with a successful partner.

Three principles for success:

Informational value;
Focus on customer benefit;
Time efficiency.

6. Dynamic Presentations

Interactivity has become the go-to practice for increasing user engagement. Therefore, it is used whenever the content fails to grab attention, anywhere from marketing to online education. Brands often include dynamic presentations in informational blog material to highlight the company’s achievements or educate the audience on a new product.

This approach works best for B2C companies with in-house development that targets the mainstream user. A presentation can be a better solution than a long article if you want to quickly and clearly communicate your team’s innovative solutions to B2B clients.

Three principles for success:

Key facts and figures
Animation that doesn’t distract from the content
Adequate number of slides

7. White Papers

White papers, a popular content format, are in-depth reports or guides about a product and service and relevant issues. The goal is to cover a certain topic without promotion and show potential clients how a certain solution can be useful to them. It’s not structured as a regular article but as a full-on PDF book – this format won’t fit into a blog.

You can take inspiration from Gartner or Deloitte – provide a short extract from the report and add a form to download the file next to it. Of course, you don’t need to ask for anything in return. But it is better to exchange the guide for an e-mail or phone, thus adding users that are interested to your sales funnel.

Three principles for success:

Captivating announcement
Succinct summary
A form for contact info (e-mail or phone number)

In Conclusion

Does an IT company need a blog? Definitely! How to create blog content, and what should you write about? Anything that highlights your expertise – from personal success stories and achievements to professional advice and reviews. The main thing is to present the information in a way that focuses on potential customers’ pains and problems that your team can solve. This approach will help you optimize and simplify the process of converting readers to leads and leads to customers!

Are you looking for an editorial team to provide blog content services? You’ve come to the right place – contact us here, and our project manager will reach back within 15 minutes. From that point on, our team of writers, editors, and experts will quickly start working on your project!

FAQ

How to write a good blog for business?

Use the language and communication techniques that your target audience understands. To make the content as suitable for different readers as possible, divide your audience into several segments. For example, if your product is a mobile game app, write one article with beginners in mind, another one – for gamers with experience, and the third one – for those who never play any games. The list can go on.

Our next piece of advice is to provide useful content for free and in good faith without going too far with brand advertising. Also, try to involve more clients in the content your write and share reviews on your product or service with a link to the person’s profile, they will appreciate it.

How how to make blog content useful?

Keep track of everything going on in your business niche and relevant areas (including new research and solutions). Avoid covering the same topics from the same perspective as everyone else. If you work with the best blog content writers and experts, you can share exclusive takes and think pieces that no one else has. This is what we practice at Contenteam.

Enrich your text with verified data and statistics that you pulled from your project, show your company’s case studies, and explain how your product/service can help customers. Overall, share everything your target customers will find interesting and always look at key metrics for content you already posted – this will help you monitor growth.

How to establish a blog content plan?

Start by defining key areas: who you’re writing for, what problems you’re going to solve, and what aspects of your product/ service you want to highlight. Then, conduct market and keyword research and brainstorm ideas. Of course, there are many steps involved in creating the writing, editing, and publishing plan – this is just a general outline.

Where to post blog content?

Your own website isn’t the only outlet available to you. You can amplify your blog as well as your brand by posting on Medium, Reddit, LinkedIn, personal page on Facebook and a company Facebook page, Quora, and Flipboard. Figure out what websites your target audience visits the most and reach out to the owners.

What is evergreen blog content?

Everegreen content stays relevant and brings value to readers over a long period of time. If you buy blog content, you definitely want some of it to have an indefinite expiration date. For example:

How-to guides (how to create an effective employee cybersecurity training program)
Beginner’s guides (introduction to insider attacks and how to prevent them)
Definitions (what is a data breach?)
Lists & checklists (10 questions to ask your IT security provider)
Best practices (why your business needs remote monitoring and management)

Сообщение 7 Astonishing Formats to Cover in a Blog for an IT Company появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

White Papers 101: How To Write Professional Materials and Establish Your Expertise

Victoria Michael — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 11:41:48 +0000

White papers are a phenomenal way to generate leads — in fact, 80% of users are willing to leave their email in exchange for a white paper. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to get in on the action. But if you’re new to writing white papers, it can be difficult to figure out where to start.

To help you out, we’ve compiled a crash course on white papers: read on to learn about data collection, formatting, white paper writing tips, promotion, and much more! At Contenteam, we’ve been creating effective white papers in English, Spanish, German, and other languages for over seven years, so we have a lot of strategies in our arsenal.

What Is White Paper Writing, and Why Is It Needed?

Before we dive into the logistics of creating a white paper, let’s examine what it is and how it can benefit your business. Who writes white papers? Well, the term “white paper” was actually derived from when government papers were color-coded; white-colored papers indicated that the text was for public access.

Nowadays, though, white papers are detailed reports that inform readers on complex challenges and present solutions. Companies create white papers as part of their content strategies. This format of content allows them to showcase their expertise in a topic, build user trust, generate leads, and expand reach.

White papers are used at different stages of the sales funnel, but more often before making a deal. The document helps a wide audience understand a topic and develop trust in the sponsor. By presenting factual evidence in an educational context, the company can position itself as an authority in its industry.

There are three main formats of white papers:

These white papers detail the benefits of a product, service, or approach.
“The problem is the solution.” This kind of document provides readers with a solution to a common problem.
Such a white paper collects useful statistics and data on the state of the industry.

And, of course, a great white paper can also contain elements of all three formats. Whichever format you choose, when writing a white paper, you should stick to these principles:

The document should be based on facts and figures rather than the author’s personal opinion.
The text should be highly detailed; it could range from 5 to 100+ pages.
The material should be written in a formal business style.

What's the Difference Between a White Paper and an E-book?

A corporate white paper isn’t the same as an e-book or a longread, even if they end up being similar in length. Check out the table below to see the differences at a glance.

White paper	e-Book	Longread
The text is usually long and continuous, with few breakdowns	The text is divided into easy-to-read blocks	The text is split into small blocks that are easy to scan
Is based on data, research, and facts	Ideas and trends are based on principles	Is based on one narrow theme
Text dominates	Text is diluted with visuals and graphics	Text is diluted with visuals, examples, and videos
Formal business style and expert tone	Informative style, dialogue with the reader	Informative or even conversational style, dialogue with the reader

A white paper is the most official, expert format out of the three. Objective data and analytics come first, and there is much less adaptation for the reader.

Killer White Paper Examples

Let’s take a look at the most prominent whipe paper exmples from the market leaders.

Google Cloud Platform

Google content is a classic example of a white paper review: an online format with a PDF download, section navigation, and solid text. They have plenty of software engineering white paper examples for your perusal.

Hyperledger

The blockchain company Hyperledger has prepared useful material on industry terms and metrics in PDF format. Diagrams and tables have been added here, which makes it easier to understand.

Cisco

Cisco proves that a white paper essay doesn’t have to be boring. Smart design, infographics, and callouts make reading this text comfortable.

Zendesk

Here’s a great example of a white paper in a report format with an engaging performance. It uses animation, graphic elements, intuitive navigation, and interactive elements.

How to Prepare a TOR for a White Paper

When preparing terms of reference for a white paper, make sure to consider the following elements:

The first question you need to answer is why your business needs a white paper. What goals will it help you achieve? Do you want to generate leads? Increase your sales? Position yourself as an expert?
Determine in which areas you’re an expert and in which areas you have enough data to write about. Then, from the resulting list, choose the topic that is most interesting to your target audience. Analyze the most frequent search queries and check out reactions to similar white paper content. Try to focus on topics that haven’t been extensively covered by competitors.
Reader persona. Determine at which stage of the funnel you will offer the white paper to users. Will they be familiar with the topic already? Do they understand the terms? What problems do they want to solve?
Determine which subtopics should be considered by the author, and choose an order (we’ll cover this in detail later).
Compile expert information, internal data, and links to sources.
Choose which graphic elements you’d like to see in the white paper. If you want a professional design, it’s better to create a separate TOR for a specialist.
Promotion channels. If the white paper will be published as an advertisement or on a landing page, you’ll need to link the paper’s introduction with the campaign’s promises. If the emphasis is on organic promotion, make sure to prescribe SEO tasks in the white paper proposal.

«When you estimate how many resources will be spent on White Paper, the most important thing is to be realistic. This means setting aside enough money and time to get the job done well and having reasonable expectations about what you can achieve with White Paper alone.»

Gordon Graham

Recognized author of over 300 white papers

How to Collect Data

White papers are data-focused; you can’t just throw statements out willy-nilly without backing them up. You’ll need to conduct significant research in order to put together an authoritative white paper – and the quality of your sources matters.

If you want to create a valuable document, you need to gather your research materials from reliable sources – and, no, blog posts that compile statistics don’t count. I can’t tell you how many times I clicked through a link to a study and found out that the blogger totally misrepresented the context.

With so much fluff on the Internet, where do you find the good stuff? Well, you have two options:

1. Your Own Research

If you have the resources for it, you can conduct your own research: this includes interviewing site visitors and customers, working with focus groups, and conducting experiments. Then, you can incorporate instructions, test results, and diagrams into your academic white paper.

This option is very successful, as it offers readers unique data. It strengthens your status as an expert and paves the way for industry networking opportunities. What’s more, the process of researching gives you incredible insights into your audience and industry.

Yet, you might not have the ability to conduct research on every topic you’d like to write about. So, in that case, you’d move on to the next option.

2. Authoritative Sources

Just about every industry contains a research firm that publishes industry trends, statistics, and valuable information — all things that add up to a spectacular white paper. For instance, Gartner is one of the most well-known and reputable research firms. If you reference them in your work, nobody’s going to give the claim side-eye.

Here’s an easy way to tell if a source is trustworthy: domain authority. Moz offers a free online site authority checker; all you have to do is enter the domain and get the result. The higher the domain authority and the lower the spam score, the safer it is to use the resource.

Some authoritative sources we work with include:

Tips for Data Collection

- Check out the white papers published by your competitors, as well as those published by trade associations and governments. By reviewing these materials, you can determine which topics have already been covered many times. You’ll want to bring something new to the table — or at least a topic that hasn’t been discussed to death.
- We recommend getting familiar with your industry’s trade associations. They publish newsletters, reports, and other publications that present facts, news, and trends in a straightforward manner. What’s more, they also host webinars, conferences, and other events, which are great ways for you to access original research carried out by association members. Want a pro tip? Sometimes these trade associations post PowerPoint presentations and workshop handouts on their websites. So, you can get insights without flying out to a conference!
- When collecting data, you’ll need a place to organize your findings. Microsoft Word is the obvious solution, but I also really like working with Evernote. Break your research up into chunks (or themes), and give each chunk a heading. You aren’t creating a white paper outline at this point; it’s just an easy way for you to keep your statistics straight. As you find facts and research that are applicable to your white paper, just paste them under the relevant heading.
- Decide in advance how you will format your citations. Typically, a list of sources is placed at the end of the white paper. We recommend using this free Citation Generator; you can choose the style (APA, MLA, etc.), and the tool will do the rest of the work. You’ll just need to copy and paste the result into your white paper.

How to Write a White Paper

Let’s dive into step-by-step White Paper creating process.

Creating an Outline

First things first, you’ll need to make an outline. Attempting to write a white paper without a plan is a big no-no; winging it will lead to a messy document, inconsistencies, and just plain inefficient writing.

There are tons of ways to create an outline, but here’s one of my favorites. First, open up a blank Word document, and write your white paper’s key message at the top. What I mean by this: pinpoint what you want your reader to understand, believe, or do after reading the document. For instance: “I want the white paper to educate readers in ABC and position our company as an authority in the XYZ industry.”

This key message prevents you from drifting — everything you write should align with your key message.

Next, list all the major points you want to address in the white paper; don’t worry about organizing them just yet. I like asking myself the five W’s and H – Who am I writing to? When is the data from? Where is this information applicable? Why is this information important to the reader? What is the problem? How is it being addressed?

As you ask yourself questions, new questions will inevitably pop up. Let yourself go down the rabbit hole — just make sure that what you write down aligns with your key message.

After brainstorming your heart out, arrange your thoughts in the order that you want to write them. Review the whole thing, and repeat the process as many times as necessary — until the outline reflects what you want to write about and the order in which you want to write it.

How the pros do it: At Contenteam, we interview the company on a call and create an extended outline based on product research. We get the client's full approval on the outline before passing it on to the white paper writer; this makes the process much more efficient and ensures that the end product aligns with the client's key message.

Choosing a Title

Just as every book has a title, a white paper must have one too. A great title tells your target audience who the paper is for, what it’s about, and why they should read it. So, if you actually want people to download your white paper, you can’t rush this step.

White papers are often long documents that are a slog to get through — so if your white paper is on the brief side compared to your competitors, spin that to your advantage. Use the title to hint that the paper is a quick, condensed read: “Six Things You Need to Know About ABC.”

Another idea is to address the audience type; for instance, “The Sales Manager’s Guide to Upcoming CRM Trends.”

Now, a completely different (yet still effective) approach would be to put your keyword at the front of the title, and add a catchier subtitle after it. Case in point — bWhen you’ve thought of a few options, run the titles through a headline tool like Sharethrough. It’ll give you a good sense of how engaging your title is.

Crafting an Introduction

The first page in any document is the most important: it might not contain the most valuable information, per se, but it needs to grab the reader’s attention, introduce the problem/question/challenge, and explain what your white paper brings to the table. Let’s take a brief look at each element.

So, first, you want to captivate your target audience and compel them to keep reading. To do this, keep your first sentence pretty short. Give a startling statistic, give a piece of advice, make an odd observation — it’s up to you. Just please, please, PLEASE, do not mention the name of your company or the title of the white paper in the first introductory sentence.

After you’ve grabbed your reader’s attention with a cool statement, it’s time to name the challenge that led to them reading the white paper. Perhaps they want to understand a technology, solve a problem, or make a decision … this is where your key message comes in handy! What is happening in the market today that involves the reader? What are companies struggling with?

State the problem clearly — and then conclude the introduction by saying how the paper will answer their questions. It can be great to include a bullet list here (don’t shy away from using lists in an introduction; anything that makes papers easier for consumers to digest is perfectly fine).

Providing an Overview

Before you dive into the meat of the whitepaper content, you need to give the reader some context. Unless every reader is working with a common set of facts and assumptions, the paper will be hard to understand. So, to give them all the context they need, you’ll provide an overview. It doesn’t have to be too long — half a page will work.

In the overview, you’ll define the key terms that will be considered in the material and set the variables. I also recommend taking a paragraph to describe the industry’s current state of affairs and present a brief history of the issue. At the end of the overview, use a couple of sentences to indicate what the reader will learn about next.

Tackling the Body

Work section by section to fill out your white paper. This is where your outline comes in handy! You’ve already broken your white paper up into different sections, and your research was organized into chunks as well. All you have to do is connect the dots! Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing the body of the text:

The best white papers provide unbiased, educational information. Don’t try to sell something to your readers or push your brand — leave that for the CTA at the end (which we will address in a moment).
Even though a white paper is data-heavy and technical, it doesn’t have to be dry. Use active language and incorporate real-life examples when possible.
Keep going back to your key message! Make sure that every paragraph points back to your key purpose: if something is irrelevant, delete it.
If you think readers need additional context that doesn’t fit within your white paper, provide a list of external resources — books, courses, videos, etc.

Give a Conclusion

Consider the key findings from different sections of the white paper. This is where you’ll add a CTA and push your service/company — after all, in most cases, the purpose of a white paper is to generate leads. Yes, you want your text to position your company as an expert in the field, but if it doesn’t generate any leads, what’s the point?

But, since white papers need to be unbiased, it can be hard to strike a balance between text that is impartial yet lead-generating. It really comes down to your CTA: you have a page or so to explain your solution, show how it solves the reader’s problem, and give some information about your business.

So, how do you present the conclusion? Open up by summarizing the white paper, and then restate the problem statement & solution. Provide a summary of your recommendations, and then transition into a description of your company and its services. Make sure to tie your services into the problem statement: very clearly spell out how you can help address the challenge.

Lastly, you need to tell the reader what the next step is and how they can take it. Do they need to fill out a form? Sign up for a free demo? Call you for a consultation? Give them any necessary information.

List the References

Provide a list of the resources you used in the material. Make sure all citations are done in the same style and that you include the DOI for online journal articles.

Errors to Avoid

Some common errors to avoid when writing a whitepaper include:

Focusing on sales. A white paper is primarily intended to reinforce your status as an expert. If it’s full of sales tactics, readers won’t glean much value — and it’ll leave a bad taste in their mouths.
Little data. All conclusions in a white paper should be based on data. If you’re writing content based on opinions and general recommendations, it’s better to format it as an e-book.
Abstract information. In order for your material to be read and shared, you need to tie facts to the specific problems they solve.
Dry writing. A white paper is professional content with strict boundaries — however, you should still follow the general principles of storytelling. Organize your material in such a way as to guide the reader from simple to complex and offer the promised reward at the end. Without this, it will be difficult to retain the reader’s attention.

Formatting and Design Tips

Now that the text is ready, it’s time to style it. You can use a regular text editor or an online builder — the latter comes with all sorts of cool templates, but you might need to pay a monthly subscription to access the service. If you want a truly professional design, though, we recommend working with an in-house specialist or freelance designer.

When formatting the white paper, keep these points in mind:

Break up your text with interesting visuals, such as charts and graphs. Highlighting blocks and building a hierarchy of elements and visuals will make the white paper easier to scan and read.
Elements should have a consistent design. Determine what the different elements will look like beforehand: headings, subheadings, lists, quotes, captions, etc.
How does the white paper look on mobile devices? More than 50% of Internet traffic today comes from mobile devices. If you don’t want to lose half of your audience, adapt the white paper for small screens.
The white paper’s design should reflect your brand’s corporate style — for instance, the same fonts, color palette, and recognizable elements should be used throughout the text.
Don’t ignore trends! While fashion might not be as important as the other elements on this list, paying attention to design trends is worth it.

For inspiration on white paper design, I recommend checking out Paperflite.

How to Promote a White Paper

Your white paper is ready! It’s well-written and organized, and the formatting is beautiful. You’ve checked and double-checked citations, and the proofreader has cleaned up any grammatical errors. But … now what? How do you get this beautiful craftmanship in front of your target audience? There are a few powerful approaches I’d like to suggest:

Collecting Leads

More often than not, companies create detailed, expert content to collect the contact information of potential customers.

«Good White Papers increase the conversion of both visits to leads and leads to customers.»

Neil Patel

Marketer and Influencer

To promote a white paper for this purpose, you’ll need to prepare separate landing pages with download forms. In order to get the material, the user needs to provide contact details and information about their company. Here’s an example from Oracle:

For this approach to work, it’s important to add the following elements to your landing page:

Describe the user’s goal. What will they get by downloading the book? For example, will they learn how to snag their ideal clients?
Provide a problem statement. What challenges are your future readers facing? For instance, perhaps CMOs want to keep their ROI while innovating but are having difficulty doing so.
Propose a solution. How does the white paper help them solve the challenge? Perhaps it provides a data-driven approach that can help pool marketing resources and personalize customer experiences.
Give a call to action. It can be pretty simple, like “Download Now.”

Pro Tip: To increase conversion, provide a material preview or add automatic import of data from social networks.

Website Ad Blocks

Do you already have a loyal audience that visits your site for industry insights? Invite them to read your white paper! To do this, you can:

Add ad units to pages and blog posts.
Set up a pop-up window for when they are on the site for a long time or if they try to leave the page.
Include a call-to-action in push notifications or via chatbot.
Mention the white paper in other publications.

External Promotion

When drawing attention to a white paper, you shouldn’t limit yourself to your own website. There are many other ways to draw in high-quality traffic:

Social networks. Here, you can capture your audience’s attention with a couple of shocking facts. Then, tell them they can download the white paper to find out more.
Send out an email notification about the material to your own base.
Shoot a video with a brief overview of the white paper, and add a download link in the description.
Share information about your work in groups and communities on similar topics.
Add a link to well-crafted guest posts.
Opinion leaders. Ask experts to tweet about your white paper or mention it in their own publications.

Summed Up

A white paper is an effective tool for generating leads and strengthening your status as an expert in the industry. To get the most business value out of this content, follow these guidelines:

Study the needs of your target audience, and use them to drive your topic and content.
Collect data — the more, the better. Do your own research or use trusted sources.
Write the text or order it from professionals (more on that later). Don’t forget to add a title, introduction, overview, subheadings, conclusion, and list of sources.
Prepare the white paper for promotion. Create a landing page for collecting leads, advertise materials on your platform, and spread the word on external sites.

Trust Your White Paper to the Experts!

At Contenteam, we live and breathe high-quality content. Our team is well-versed in producing white papers that boost clients’ authority, are filled with data from high-quality sources, and are supplemented with beautiful graphics and useful charts.

We can handle white papers on any topic, including highly technical ones. And no matter what length you need, our white paper writers are on the job: from smaller papers with 6-8 pages, all the way to 70+ page beasts, we’ve done it all!

Save yourself hours upon hours of writing, and leave the job to the experts. Here’s how we carry out white paper writing services:

First, we’ll have a call. Together, we’ll determine an outline, and you can provide us with any original research. If you want us to do all the research ourselves, that won’t be a problem. We have access to the best research databases.
Next, the white paper will be assigned to a white paper copywriter who has subject knowledge of your industry (for example, if it’s a text on cloud technology, an IT writer will handle the text; PR experts will write public relations white papers, etc.).
After the paper writer has finished, the text will move on to a fact-checker. After all, white papers are data-driven, so every statistic needs to be correct.
Next, an editor will make sure that the white paper meets your specifications in full: from style and tone to contents.
Lastly, a proofreader will scour the white paper carefully for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Once the white paper has passed this multi-step approval process and is perfect, we’ll send it to you. And that’s it — with little work on your end, you’ll receive expertly written content that cements your position in the industry.

We offer the best white paper solutions for numerous niches, including:

IT white papers
Crypto white papers
Retail white papers
Healthcare white papers
Fintech white papers
White papers for corporate investors

If you want to learn more about ordering our white paper service, fill out our contact form. I’d be happy to have a white paper consulting session with you!

White Paper Writers Wanted

Are you a technical writer looking for work? Contenteam is expanding, and we're adding specialist writers to our team. If you think you have the chops for white paper copywriting, fill out the contact form!

FAQ

Why are interviews important when writing a white paper?

Interviews can provide readers with new information that isn’t widely known. An interview contains the perspective of one person rather than general industry insights. Thus, interviews can bring all sorts of fresh ideas to the table.

What does a white paper look like?

A white paper usually opens up with a title page, which contains the company’s logo, a headline, the date of publication, and a 1-sentence summary. The second page has a table of contents, and the following pages have the actual text. The final page will contain references and, sometimes, a blurb about the company.

How to write a technical white paper?

Here is a pretty basic summary of what a technical white paper does: you’ll address the problem that readers are facing. Then, you’ll introduce the technical product that solves that problem. First, explain how the product works in general. Then, move on to how the product fixes the challenge and why it’s the best solution. If you don’t want to write the technical white paper yourself, consider using white paper services from Contenteam. Order a technical white paper, and you’ll receive well-organized, on-brand content that’s backed up by the latest data.

How long should a white paper be?

It really depends on how much useful information you have. Don’t be tempted to pad out a whitepaper with filler content; if it can fit in 6-8 pages, that’s great. After all, your target audience might not have lots of time to examine huge documents. However, if you are contributing original research, the white paper can be as long as necessary; I’ve read some that are 50+ pages!

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How To Write and Promote a Case Study + Best Examples

Nazira Konysbayeva — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 10:23:37 +0000

Talking about a company’s experience in solving specific practical problems is the best way to advertise. Not to mention, you can take advantage of the power of stories and turn them into a powerful, convincing business tool for potential buyers. We are talking about writing a case study. Contenteam shares how to make a case study and show you some great examples.

What Is a Case Study?

A case study is a deep and thorough analysis of a specific real-life situation.

In the business context, we can define a case study as a content format that demonstrates the experience of solving problems of a client. It is structured based on the principles of storytelling: there is a protagonist that is in conflict with an enemy – a problem. While trying to solve it, the protagonist finds someone who helps them – a company or a product. Together, they defeat the enemy and become better.

Case studies are created for the bottom stages of the sales funnel. They usually generate less traffic than optimized blog posts but are far more effective at convincing potential customers. In fact, if a potential customer sees evidence of you successfully solving a similar problem, they will be closer to making their choice in your favor.

Statistics show:

Case studies are the third most popular content format among B2B marketers, with 68% of specialists using it in their strategy.
66% of B2B marketers consider case studies to be “very effective” in attracting leads and increasing sales; 32% call it “quite effective.”
We asked the member of our telegram channel which content formats they prefer for IT promotion. Case studies made second place after blog articles, with 19% of respondents in favor of them.

As you can see, many companies already rely on case studies for a winning strategy.

Who Needs To Write Case Studies

If your business solves consumer problems, and the project results can be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed, it is worth adding case studies to your promotion strategy.

But it can also be a waste of time for other companies – those that provide standardized services or sell a simple product.

The main value of this content format is a conflict, a complex, interesting situation. The hero must overcome an obstacle to reach their goal. Otherwise, no one would read the story.

For example, the process of implementing an IT solution for a client’s company is case-worthy, whereas a usual site audit is not.

Important note: press releases, promotional materials, and ads are not case studies. The goal of a case study is not to sell but to demonstrate your abilities through real projects. Anything that you state in the material must be objective and supported by data.

Challenges of Writing Case Studies

Case studies generate hot leads and build up a business’s reputation. However, many companies have their hesitations about this content format, and here are the main reasons why:

There is nothing to talk about. This is probably the most common problem. You might not have big wins yet, but even small achievements can provide a blueprint for a useful case study. After all, you can write an anti-case study and help potential clients avoid the same mistakes.
Clients don’t want to collaborate. If you’re held back from writing about your achievements by an NDA, try to negotiate. Perhaps you’ll be able to write a non-specific case without mentioning the brand and using their data.
Competitors will steal your ideas. Case studies can become the basis of entire learning systems because this is where companies share effective strategies. However, you shouldn’t worry that your experience will help competitors get ahead of you. You have different work processes, teams, and tasks. Whatever has worked in your case may not necessarily help a similar project.
You need an expert. Case study research is not the task for an average copywriter. Firstly, the format takes a lot of time and preparation: conducting interviews, collecting data, etc. Secondly, the writer must understand the subject matter and what the client’s business is all about. If you don’t have someone like that on your team, consider working with an agency.

These challenges can be handled. Follow the steps below to make sure you don’t miss out on anything and create truly effective content.

How To Do a Case Study With Prominent Results

Here is the best strategy to create the case study for evergreen lead generation.

Goals

As with any other marketing activity, you need to start with setting the goals. In terms of KPIs, it’s better to focus on the number of leads and sales growth rather than traffic and reach. A side note: the average conversion rate for organic search is 5%, for paid search – 3.6%, and for social media – 1.9%. The metrics will depend on the type of promotion you choose.

Specify how much time and resources and how many employees it will take to prepare the material, and how you plan to promote it. Coordinate the plan with management.

When the task is done, you will be able to objectively assess how effectively the content will perform.

Topic and Format

The goals are set. Now, you can move on to choosing the topic and the project. Focus on striking a balance: the story should be interesting and also relevant to potential customers. It’s not wise to choose a rare problem that will generate no response. The story can involve different types of business, circumstances, methods, and solutions, but the general conflict should be familiar to most people.

Good topics to cover:

● cost reduction

● turning a profit

● increasing in the number of leads

● profit growth

● improving sales close rates

● entering a new market

● improving efficiency and reducing environmental impact

● optimization to meet legal requirements

At the initial stages of writing a case study, choose the format for it. Your options are:

● text

● presentation

● PDF file

● web page

● video

● infographics

● podcast

Client

The topic is clear. Now, you need to choose a suitable client to write about. You can focus on the following categories:

Product Knowledge

It’s better to write about a client who is familiar with your product. It means they use it effectively and to its full potential.

Significant Increase in The Main Metrics

Customers with satisfactory results are more likely to cooperate, and their stories will make for better cases, drawing the attention of the target audience.

Popular Brands

If your client is well-known in the industry, you will earn trust and credibility as a bonus to generating leads.

Dissatisfied Customers of Your Competitors

You can highlight your benefits by telling how you work with such requests.

Industry

Try to choose interesting projects in those industries and fields that you often work with. This will strengthen your expertise.

After that, find the customer’s contact information and proceed to the next step.

Client’s approval

Make sure the client is willing to collaborate. Describe what you need from them and what they will receive in return. You can write a letter, make a call or reach out on a messenger.

Here is how you can tell a client that you are conducting a case study:

Hello [customer name]!

Our team is working on a case study where we would like to tell the story of [company name]. Are you interested in working on it together?

Here’s the type of data we need:

● high-resolution logo

● photos of team members, office, production site – stories with images attract more traffic

● figures before and after

During the process, we will:

● interview [team member]

● write a case study based on the interview

● ask additional questions if needed

● send you a draft for approval

● make edits, publish the case study, and start promoting it

This will take about a month.

Please let me know if this format is suitable for you.

Kind regards,

[author of the letter]

At the point when you’re just discussing cooperation, it will still be useful to mention the benefits for the client. For example:

Expanding the brand reach. You will mention the name of the company, briefly describe the project. This will increase awareness and even attract the attention of potential customers.
Building a personal brand for employees. You will use quotes from team members, which will strengthen their expert status and boost recognition.
A discount on a product or service. Motivate the client to spend their time by making an offer on special terms.
External links. You will add an active link to the client’s website. Since you are a reputable resource, it will improve their rankings.

These arguments should convince the client and make the discussion stage easier.

Interview With the Client and Data Collection

Approval received, moving on to the interview. It can be carried out in any format that’s convenient to both parties: phone, video, email, messenger. You need to discover answers to the following questions:

What problems did you face before using our product/service?
Why did you choose our product/service? Have you considered offers by competitors?
How did our product/service solve your problem?
What business goals do you set?
Are you ready to share the evidence about your success?

Here are questions for the client’s profile:

● What industry do you work in?

● How long have you been using our product/service?

● What does your workflow look like?

● How many people are on your team?

It may be enough to only cover the basics for a small case. But if you are planning to write a detailed study, you will need more details.

Storytelling

Data that you collect is the backbone of a future story. Now, you need to arrange it following the best storytelling traditions. “The Hero’s Journey” is the preferred template for a case study. What does he look like?

The narrative consists of three acts:

● problem

● solution

● result

Remember that your customer is the protagonist of the story, not a product or service. You were just guiding them on their path to success.

Draw up a plan, assign the data for each act and proceed to the next step.

Structure

Everything is ready for the most important stage: writing the case study. Start telling the story step by step:

Heading and subheading. Try to include a brief description of the client, problems, and solutions in this block. Great example: How Host Analytics Used LeadGnome To Increase Lead Quality By 80%. Bad example: LeadGnome Helps To Increase Lead Quality.
Summary. Describe the case, list the main figures, and share conclusions in a few paragraphs.
Customer. Who this case is about: industry, size of the company, its specifics.
Problem or challenge. Describe the problem your client faced or what goals they set.
Solution. How your product helped to solve the problem or achieve a certain result.
Results. Figures, percentages, or before/after visuals.
Plans. If the project is not finished, share what else you plan to do to achieve the best results.
Call to action. Invite potential clients to contact you, subscribe to a newsletter, or read similar case studies.

The draft is not ready for the next step.

Approval

Contact the client again, show the material and, if necessary, make changes. It sounds simple, but the stage can take a while.

Design

It’s time to focus on the case study design. The choice will depend on the format, posting platform, and budget: a simple layout can be enough, but sometimes a case study requires infographics or even an animation video.

General rules:

Ensure the scannability of the material: emphasize important things with lists, divide the text into small paragraphs, add subheadings.
Visualize your data. To make sure the data is easy to understand, consider graphics, animation, tables, infographics, interactive elements – any format that works for you.
Simplify. Give examples, add comparisons that the readers will get, make videos.
Place accents. Use contrasting colors to highlight key findings, important quotes.
Brand. Add a logo, use brand colors and fonts.

It is better to get the client to approve the material again. They might ask you to change the font or resize an employee’s photo near the quote.

Approved? Then let’s roll!

Where To Publish and How To Promote Case Studies

Most of the work is done. All that’s left is to share your experience with potential clients. Let’s start with the publication.

Platforms for publishing a case study:

Company website. It’s already the place where you bring the audience. Case studies will help them decide to make a purchase. The content can be publicly available or shared in exchange for contact information.
Relevant niche websites. Publish the case study on a platform that is often visited by your target audience: a blog for entrepreneurs or Medium. This is a good option if your website still has little traffic, but you want to increase the reach. As a bonus, you also get an external link from a reputable source.
Social media. There are two ways to approach it: post case studies directly on your account or on relevant groups (but don’t spam).

You published a case study and obtained the link. How to promote it? Here are some options:

● Run targeted ads on social media. Add users who have previously been interested in your website or group to your core audience.

● Set up contextual advertising. Check if the topic of your case study is popular in search.

● Conduct seed testing. Promote the publication in relevant communities, forums, Q&A platforms.

● Ask the client to talk about the material on their website.

● Share your experience with an expert. They might find it interesting and share it with their audience.

Follow these steps to write an effective case study and show it to as many potential customers as possible. But before you start, take a look at some examples of case study research papers and use them as inspiration for your own.

Best Case Study Examples

IBM released Watson AI to help businesses automate processes and improve efficiency. The brand talks about its success in the Customer stories section in a clear, easy-to-understand manner.

Here is one of the case studies – the results of the project with Korean Air. It has an intriguing headline, an overview of the problem, a description of what was done, impressive results, and a call to action.

The next example will inspire companies that have little experience to challenge themselves and create case studies practically out of nothing. This is what the Cloud Guru training platform did.

Cloud Guru’s employee shared a compelling story on Medium. In Australia, Victoria’s police staff was struggling to handle stolen car searches, so they commissioned the development of an automated monitoring system BlueNet, worth $86 million. The hero of this unusual case was able to create a free alternative, which impressed 78,000 readers. The call to action motivates readers to learn the technical skills to create projects of equal scale.

And here is a classic example of a case study from HubSpot. Description of the project, focus on the results, the client in the lead role, quotes, a call to action – they included all the important elements.

Here is one of the best case study design examples in a PDF format from eMoney. The story is divided into several blocks: “Company Profile,” “Problem,” “Solution,” “Results,” and a call to action.

Case studies are not always about a client’s story. You can talk about an internal experiment while promoting your product. For example, like Ahrefs. They created a detailed piece with screenshots, gifs, graphs, and even algorithms.

In short

A case study is a valuable content format that you shouldn’t neglect. It turns users into customers, demonstrates your expertise, and helps you promote your business.

How to conduct a case study:

Set a goal and choose KPIs.
Decide on a topic and format.
Select a client.
Share your intentions and get approval.
Conduct interviews and collect data.
Arrange the story using the template Problem -> Solution -> Result.
Write a title, summary, client profile, problems and solutions, results you achieved, and any further plans for the project. Add a call to action.
Send draft to the client for approval.
Add design elements, create visual content.

You can publish the case study on your website, external sites, or social media. Promote it using targeted and contextual ads, placing links in relevant discussions, and collaborating with experts.

If you struggle with any of these stages, please contact Contetneam – we will be happy to help. Contenteam – we will be happy to help.

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How to Promote Software Products via Content Marketing in 2023

Nazira Konysbayeva — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 08:20:26 +0000

The global software market is growing at a steady pace – up 7.4% each year. Moreover, considering there are 27 million developers in the world, by 2030, there will be more than 45 million.

Do you have the feeling that it’s getting harder and harder to promote your products? The bad news is that it won’t get better.

The competition is increasing, industry giants are taking up most of the traffic, and it the chances of creating something unique become slimmer. However, it doesn’t mean that you should leave IT, slamming the door behind you, because of all these challenges. There is $580 billion circulating in software development, and if you market your product wisely, you can still jump on the bandwagon. In this review, Contenteam will cover the best tactics in content marketing for SaaS.

Challenges in Promoting Software Products

Let’s start by discussing why many companies don’t succeed in promoting their product.

First, it’s not an easy niche. Sowaftre or application development is not cheap. Also, the market is full of free alternatives, and it’s no surprise that users love freebies.

Here are a few other common challenges for a SaaS content agency:

The idea carries the main value of the product, but it is almost always very easy to copy.
Software has a long sales cycle – first, consumers test a trial version and only then decide to buy (or hesitate, which happens much more often).
Continuing the previous point, it’s not that difficult to attract downloads, but only experts with a fearless mindset can motivate people to pay for a program.
IT is complex, making it hard to describe the benefits of the program in a clear and accessible way.

Secondly, many people don’t have a proper promotion plan. But chaotic campaigns don’t succeed. You need to think it over even before writing the first line of code – assess the market, competitors, demand, and prospects. And that will help you come up with a product that solves specific user problems and does it better than similar programs.

SaaS Marketing Strategy: The Steps

If you are determined and audacious, you can move on to creating a marketing strategy. Write down the following points and discuss them with the team:

Market assessment: players, scale, demand. For example, post scheduling software for social media has huge competition, plus, the platforms already have free official tools. But when it comes to high-quality text generators based on artificial intelligence, there are very few of them.
Target audience analysis and segmentation: determine who needs your software and why. Divide the target audience into several groups, create portraits of ideal customers for each group. Here is an example.

Positioning: create a unique selling proposition, or a USP, list competitive advantages, and develop a corporate identity. For example, HubSpot markets itself as marketing, sales, and service software that helps your business grow without compromise.
Marketing activities: decide how and where you will promote the program or application. This is what we’ll cover in the next section.

22 SaaS Content Strategies for All Types of Products

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for promoting programs and applications: each niche and market has its own set of rules. But it still means that you can choose SaaS content marketing strategies from the list below and try them for your business. The success of IT companies often relies on these activities.

1. Website

Before telling the entire Internet about your software, you need to lay the foundation – the official website. This is where you’ll be sending traffic from other channels and convert visitors into customers.

Here is what you should include on the site:

A detailed and clear description of the product: what it does, who needs it, what problems it solves.
Social proof: logos of famous brands that use your program, customer reviews, ratings on other sites, recommendations from thought leaders.
Rates: list the prices in a comparison table. Many companies reduce prices for long-term subscriptions to increase customer retention.
Guarantees: why is it safe to download your program? How will payment processing work? What if I don’t like the product?
Information: a blog, FAQ, instructions, case studies, and any other additional resources that will help to make a purchasing decision and understand how the product works quickly.
Contacts: contact customer support; a section for partners and applicants if necessary.
Call to action: usually, it’s a button offering to download a trial version, leave a request to access the service, or learn more.

To increase chances of your site’s being successful, make your designs look professional, use less text but ensure it’s powerful and convincing, add visuals – videos, infographics, software screenshots, etc.

Let’s look at the example of a post scheduling service called Later.

First screen. The team shows what their program looks like, states their USP in the title, and talks about their capabilities in two sentences. The call to action is strengthened by guarantees: free forever, set up in minutes, no credit card required.

Second screen. If a visitor is hesitant about creating an account, social proof and benefits will come into play.

Third-sixth screens. Here, the team describes the functions in more detail to make sure the user is fully convinced that this software is a useful solution for their problems.

Seventh screen. Testimonials from happy customers to get rid of any doubt.

Eighth screen. They list guarantees once again and attach a call to action.

The site also has a blog, resources for training, contacts of the support, courses, an About Us page, and a section for partners.

2. Mobile App Stores

Now that you have a website that does part of the selling, move on to attracting traffic from external sites. The first step is to register in application stores: Google Play, App Store, Microsoft Store, and others. This is where most users download new software for their devices.

How to promote in app stores:

Learn the requirements of the site and write a description according to them.
Add keywords to the text to rank in search results for your target queries. If your brand is still getting little attention, optimize the page for searching by function: tracking expenses, losing weight quickly, removing the background, etc.
Collect downloads and reviews. These metrics are very important for ranking. At the initial stages, you can ask friends or pay users that download the app – you can find them on freelance exchanges. However, don’t resort to cheating if you don’t want to find yourself banned.
Add external promotion. Run SaaS advertising, promotions on social media, and working with influencers.

3. Industry-specific Portals

If your SaaS marketing plan is not for applications, you can post on other portals where people download software. The main idea is the same: design the page, optimize for search engines and work on activity and engagement on the page. Here are some options:

You can also come into the spotlight on popular platforms where developers talk about their products:

Check if your niche has online portals, media, or directories that other companies use to promote software. Contact them and clarify the terms of cooperation.

4. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is not only about raising money for a project. Products that become popular on such sites often become hits outside of them and get picked up by the media.

You should definitely include this channel in your strategy if your program solves an important consumer problem and with no worthwhile equivalents.

Several leading sites are:

5. Search Engine Optimization

You’ve made a statement about yourself, now let’s move on to promotion. SEO won’t bring instant results but will provide long-term growth of the project’s recognition. There are three directions to focus on:

The technical side: page speed, clean code, navigation, robots.txt and sitemap files, meta tags, markup.
Content optimization: keywords, LSI, formatting, text volume, internal linking, reading experience.
Links: Organic link building from reputable sources.

6. Contextual Advertising

If you run ads in search engines, you can reach top positions in the SERPs the same day. However, it’s not cheap: $1-$2 per click on average.

You can launch a campaign through:

Produce creative content, customize keywords, and start driving paid traffic to your website or app store product page.

7. Expert Blog

Software is difficult to display. You can’t try on a program or take a picture of it, but what you can do is write about it in an interesting way. This is why an expert blog is a win-win tool for promoting software.

Here is what you can write about:

Product updates
Comparison of your solution with competitors’ products
Answers to user questions
Instructions – how to solve a specific problem using the program
Instructions for beginners and best tactics
Alternatives for popular applications (yours being the first on the list)
Interviews with clients
Material on adjacent topics: reviews of industry trends, guides, collections of ideas, research. They will strengthen your position as an expert
Case studies
Downloadable detailed documents (for example, white papers), which will help to collect contacts of potential customers

Make your blog and search engine optimization go hand-in-hand for better results.

8. Social Media

Take a look at the most popular apps worldwide: 7 out of 10 are social networks or instant messengers. People already spend half their lives here, so why not use these channels to promote new technologies?

Study audience preferences and find out where your potential customers are active the most. Register and design profiles and start promoting them with content, targeted ads, and public and blogger promotions.

Social media is also great for collecting feedback, user-generated content, and customer support.

9. Landing Pages

In the beginning, you created portraits of ideal customers. Chances are you made several very different profiles because a single product can be used to solve different problems. You will increase conversions by reaching out to each of these groups with a unique content marketing solution.

For example, Unbounce offers different solutions.

For SaaS:

For ecommerce:

Create a landing page for each profile. Here is where you can get traffic:

ads
blog
expert articles on third-party sites
social media, etc.

This personalization will help the user understand that your product will definitely solve their problem.

10. Website Visibility

When it comes to converting a visitor to a client, you can’t forget about the usability of your website and landing pages. After all, it’s not only the relevance and quality of the product that drives a customer’s decision but also the user experience. Here is what’s important to consider:

Ease of navigation and site structure.
Breadcrumbs – links between different sections.
Ease of conversion. How easy is it to download the program or send a request for access?
Search. How quickly will the user find what they need?
The quality of site search.
Contacts information.
Convenient design. Usually, the simpler – the better.
Page speed.
Valid links.
Adaptivity for different screens and devices.

When you take care of the main things, you can run A/B testing for the color, layout, forms, visuals, etc.

11. User’s Attention

If there is traffic but few downloads, try to work with keeping visitors’ attention. Add pop-ups, blog post ad inserts, exclusive push emails, floating buttons, and live chats.

Make sure not to overdo it, otherwise, the user will quickly leave the site. Test tools gradually and observe the reaction.

12. Outreach

If you’re already posting expert blog content, outreach can help you get even more value out of it. Reach out to reputable publications within your niche and offer to make guest posts with mentions of your product.

You can also keep track of program selection articles, contact the authors and negotiate to place a link to your service.

If it is technically possible, collect data using your software and turn it into an original study. The media is happy to publish this kind of content, which incidentally increases your brand reach and improves your site’s rankings.

13. Email Marketing

Here is what can help you collect email addresses:

forms that visitors need to fill out to download the trial version
contact forms
account registration
downloadable detailed content
bonuses for registered users

You will need to segment the list of addresses and send out links to new materials, information about updates and promotions. But don’t do this too often to prevent email from going to spam.

It’s also very important to set up an automatic mailing list for new customers, which will help them understand how to use the program. This will extend the life cycle of your customers and reduce the number of returns.

14. Display Ads

This option is usually less effective than contextual advertising, but there is also a time and place for it. These are banners and videos shown on different websites.

The best platforms for launching display ads:

15. Video

Videos are life-savers for marketers who are promoting sophisticated software. A visual demonstration shows how it works, the benefits, and motivates users to download and try the product – all in just a couple of minutes.

Add videos on your website and guest posts, but there is a lot more to it. Try YouTube, the second most popular search engine in the world, other video hosting sites (Vimeo, Dailymotion), and social media. Optimize your description to hit the SERP for the right search terms.

16. Demo

Let’s face it: there is a lot of great free software on the market. And if you want to promote expensive software, you need a demo. Users will want to test whatever they’ll be paying for.

There are two common approaches:

Make all functionality available, but limit the time: 7 days, a month, etc.
Offer a limited free version and plans with additional features.

Choose the option that suits you best and direct traffic to the demo.

17. Affiliate Program

Offer a percentage of sales for promoting your software. Connect the affiliate program and remember to specify what promotion channels to avoid paying for low-quality traffic.

You can implement the approach on your own directly on your website (through discount coupons, for example) and through CPA networks.

18. Direct Sales

If you offer business software, you can implement direct sales. Find big industry players, make a unique proposal, and start the discussion directly. To make it more efficient, personalize all marketing materials and adapt to customer requests.

19. Events

Arrange themed events, invite experts, and as a side note, introduce your product to the audience. This can also be done as a traditional seminar and conference or as online events like webinars and live broadcasts.

20. Early Access

Before the global product launch, gather a list of the most interesting clients (bloggers, experts, large companies) and invite them to test the software. Consider giving them free access. If they like the product, you will receive endorsements from thought leaders.

Ideally, if the use of the software is visible to others – you can make a new block on the website. Then the approach will definitely be beneficial.

21. Brand

Competitors can copy the idea, but if you build a strong brand, customers will still remain loyal to you. You will need:

Recognition – style, design, logo, colors, presentation.
High-quality experience – service, response time for new requests, convenience and usability, updates.

Brand building is not a separate strategy: it should become part of all your activities and communications with the audience.

22. Localization

Software usually has no geographic restrictions and can be useful to users anywhere in the world. High-quality software localization will help you expand your reach and grow several times faster.

Localization includes not only translating the interface but also all marketing materials: website, blog, landing pages, ads, etc.

Contenteam has been helping clients as a SaaS content marketing agency for 8 years, and we know for sure that machine translation or freelance services don’t have any benefits for your company.

In short

There are quite a few options for promoting software. Choose which ones suit your business:

creating a high-quality website for the product
uploading to app stores
registering on industry-specific portals
crowdfunding
optimizing the site for search engines
placing contextual ads to attract traffic quickly
maintaining an expert blog
promoting on relevant social media platforms
creating landing pages for different target audiences
improving site usability
making guest posts and doing PR
launching email campaigns
placing display ads
creating and promoting video
offering a demo
launching an affiliate program
doing direct B2B sales
holding events online and offline
offering early access to influencers
strengthening your brand’s position
localizing the program and marketing materials

Are you looking for the high-quality promotion of an IT product with expert content? Send us a message, and our writer and editors will help you create export IT content for your brand. We look forward to chatting with you at your free consultation!

Сообщение How to Promote Software Products via Content Marketing in 2023 появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

Emotional SEO: Converting Website Traffic into Qualified Leads 📈

Victoria Michael — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:42:53 +0000

Сообщение Emotional SEO: Converting Website Traffic into Qualified Leads 📈 появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

How to Create an Impressive IT presentation

Nazira Konysbayeva — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 11:01:38 +0000

A business presentation is a great way to introduce yourself to clients, partners, or investors. But creating a successful pitch, especially to a new audience, is a difficult task. You need to not only present the company accurately but also phrase it properly. Today we are here to share some editorial insights on preparing an IT presentation.

When asked about the time to prepare a speech, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th US president, said:

“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

It takes a lot of time to prepare a pitch and presentation of a startup, often involving more than one person. But at the end of the day, it’s worth it.

A well-written, visually appealing IT presentation communicates that you are a professional, know your business, have the competence to talk about it, and value your colleagues’ time. On the other hand, a poor presentation will fail in capturing the audience’s attention and make a negative impact on your startup. For all intents and purposes, a presentation makes the first impression on your customers and partners.

What to Include in a Presentation: Let’s Talk Specific Points

A presentation should reveal an idea and a business plan in less than 20 minutes. I have selected the 10 most important things from the investor’s perspective, which should be included in a tech project presentation. Here’s how to express ideas in a presentation.

1. Title Page

A title page has the logo, the name of the startup, and a slogan (if there is one). A slogan should give an idea of what the company stands for and be memorable. Also, remember to include your contact information – you’d be surprised to learn how many people forget about it.

2. Summary

Summarize all the information about the startup to grab the audience’s attention right from the start. Mention interesting facts, important milestones, and notable achievements.

3. Team

Investors contribute money not only for the idea but also for the team. It is important for them to know the people who will make the concept successful. Talk about yourself, your team, and your mutual wins. This will show that you can work together effectively and enjoy doing it. If you have advisors, include them as well, but make sure they agree to be mentioned.

4. Problem

A good idea for any presentation is to present the problem that your concept will solve. Additionally, you need to justify why investors or partners should be interested in solving this problem using your product or service.

5. Solution

This is a value proposition. It should solve the problem you just talked about. If you have a product demo, now is a good time to show it. Add insights from case studies. This will help you prove that your product will work for real customers.

6. Marketing/Sales

Calculate the market size for your product. If you already have completed sales, we recommend describing possible ways to promote it and forecasting future earnings. You can add target customer portraits, but be prepared to answer questions about the cost of attracting them.

7. Forecast

Sure, financial forecasting is difficult for a startup, so don’t try to impress partners with baseless speculations. Instead, show the metrics you already have. For example, point out that you received 1,000 customers in X amount of time, have partnered with company Y, signed a contract with a large customer, or will increase your income by Q3.

8. Competitors

Every business has competitors, even if you offer something new and unique. List your competitors and note what makes your product/service different from their model.

9. Business model

All company presentation ideas come down to this – the main point that an investor wants to know. You need to explain your plan to make money. List all the revenue streams within your model and the payback period for each. How will you price your product, and how much are your competitors charging? We also recommend discussing the customer value and how you will keep them engaged.

10. Funding

If you have already raised money, talk about who invested, how much they invested, and what you did with these investments. If you have not attracted investments yet, talk about what you have achieved with minimal funding. If you are trying to raise capital, specify how much you want to raise and how you are going to use the funds.

Bonus - Attitude of Gratitude

You don’t need to create a separate slide but be sure to thank the audience out loud for listening and paying attention.

Design Trends in Corporate Presentations

Now, let’s peek into 5 major design trends in startup presentations with examples. Of course, there are numerous more trends, but we chose the five most widely used and effective ones.

1. More images, less text

Gone are the days of long quotes of great thinkers or a detailed history of your company from the beginning of time – people are no longer interested. Now, they pay closer attention to the visual part instead of the text. So, feel free to include as many images as possible in your presentation and convey the important information by saying it.

2. Infographic is the new black

Combining information and graphics is the best way to shake up a boring slide. The audience wants to see new and fresh takes on presenting the information. Infographics are eye-catching and present key data in an easy-to-understand and interesting format.

3. Customized fonts

Forget about Arial, Times New Roman, and Calibri. It’s 2021, and people love seeing unique fonts in presentations. It allows your presentation to be visually different and original – even if there is no logo on the slide, the font will give away whose presentation it is.

4. Minimalism

Minimalism is gaining traction not only in life but also in design. The trend offers another opportunity to help your audience focus on what matters most. Less is more. Don’t distract your audience with the details they don’t need, and they won’t miss the important things.

5. Trendy colors

No organization knows more about color than Pantone. Each year, they set the color trend for all areas of design – from digital to high fashion. So, according to Pantone, the colors of 2021 are Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. Why not follow the fashion and use these shades in your presentation, showing that you keep up with the times in all respects?

Grammar, Stylistics, and Tone in Presentations

All presentation projects need to have a strong foundation – grammatically, stylistically, punctually, etc. It should be free from all types of errors. Remember that a presentation is the storefront of your company for an investor. Any little thing, like a typo or a grammatical mishap on the first slide, can hurt your chances of success to a significant degree.

Be sure to adapt the style and tone depending on who the presentation targets. For example, some audiences don’t mind slight informality, while others consider it disrespectful. Look into these nuances before creating a presentation.

Ideally, find someone who understands this audience and ask them to review the text.

Takeaway

Before making a presentation, write down a few questions that you expect to get and have a run-through with your team.

Remember that you are the expert in the topic, while your investors or partners are here to help you. But if you are not confident in your abilities when it comes to IT presentation ideas and putting them into proper words and images, you can always contact us – our IT experts will be happy to assist.

Сообщение How to Create an Impressive IT presentation появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

Tone Matters: How to Use Tone of Voice to Improve Your IT Content and Boost Sales

Victoria Michael — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:34:28 +0000

Have you ever sent a text that just didn’t come across the way you meant it? Perhaps you forgot to add an emoji, it wasn’t clear that you were being sarcastic, or maybe you even ended the text with a period (gasp!). Next thing you know, the person you’re texting feels self-conscious, confused, or even offended – all because your tone of voice in communication didn’t properly convey your message.

Newsflash: the exact same thing can happen in your brand’s published content. But things are even trickier here; while you can add emojis, GIFS, and “lols” galore in a text conversation, you can’t really do that in IT content. Or, at least, we really don’t recommend doing that.

So, it begs the questions: how do you avoid coming across as dry, bland, and condescending in IT text while still retaining a semblance of professionalism? What is tone of voice supposed to look like for an IT company? These are tricky questions, for sure, but the Contenteam editorial team has extensive experience in this area; read on for insight in perfecting your IT company’s tone of voice.

The Good vs. the Bad

All right, let’s start off with what we shouldn’t do. If you find yourself relating to some of the examples, don’t despair! Perfecting your tone of voice in tech writing is a challenging process. And, besides, you’re here, aren’t you? That’s the first step!

Don’t: Write for Keywords

Please, please, PLEASE don’t write content solely to cram in keywords and optimize your website’s SEO. Repeat after me: readers will see right through this. Sure, you might get lots of clicks onto your website, but visitors will just as quickly click off the site. After all, do you really want to slog through something like this?

What is cloud computing? Cloud computing is not a new term. When talking about cloud computing, we mean services rendered via the internet. Software resources and information are shared through an Internet connection when you use cloud computing. And, you might wonder, what are the different kinds of cloud computing?

This kind of writing is something I come across a lot when researching IT topics, which is why I’ve switched to almost exclusively reading scholarly journals and professional publications. There simply isn’t enough well-written IT web content; it’s stuffed full of keywords, and it’s apparent that it was written for SEO, not for the reader. Just do any IT-related web search, and you’ll come across a glut of poor tone of voice examples.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use keywords. They just need to be smartly used. Long-form content is a great way to add in relevant IT keywords, as you don’t have to stuff loads of them into a 500-word article.

Don’t: Overuse Jargon and Buzzwords

Avoid technical jargon as much as possible, especially if you are writing the technical text for non-IT workers. Not only does your text need to be accessible for the lowest common denominator, but the IT world is ever-changing, and you don’t want to incorporate trendy buzzwords. Otherwise, your text will seem outdated in just a couple of years!

Now, this isn’t to say that jargon doesn’t have its time and place. If your primary audience is IT professionals who are “in-the-know,” it can be easier to use industry terms – think B2B writing. But if you’re writing for consumers, you need to consider whether they’ll understand the terms you’re using.

So, when determining which jargon to use, assess the audience and use your best judgment. But, buzzwords? Scrap them altogether.

But, Victoria! What’s the difference between jargon and buzzwords? Jargon is essentially an industry shorthand used to communicate between professionals and in-the-know people. Buzzwords, on the other hand, are trendy phrases that become popular for a period of time and then fizzle out. Often, these have nothing to do with the industry at all and are more related to corporate lingo.

Examples of jargon: Backward compatibility, fragmentation, scalability, scripting, CRM, backend
Examples of buzzwords: Synergy, ground-breaking, actionable, thought leader, greenfield

Now, time for some Do’s!

Do: Stay Consistent

Tone of voice’s definition is a simple one: the way a person speaks to someone. It’s so important for you to keep a consistent tone of voice across your IT brand’s content – but if you have a team of writers, this can be difficult. We recommend creating a style guide for your editorial team. Many organizations already do this, and they might include their feelings on the Oxford comma, title capitalization, and so on. But this is a great place to include information about your IT brand’s tone of voice! Some tools for creating tone of voice brand guidelines include:

There are 4 main dimensions of tone of voice, but they act as a spectrum rather than clear-cut divisions. Assess your target audience, figure out where you need to lie on the spectrum, and include that in the style guide.

Dimension 1: Funny vs. Serious
Dimension 2: Formal vs. Casual
Dimension 3: Respectful vs. Irreverent
Dimension 4: Enthusiastic vs. Matter-of-Fact

Tone Profile Example 1: Serious, Matter-of-Fact: Your lifestyle, policy management preferences, and driving habits, among other factors, are considered when determining which discounts you are eligible for.

Tone Profile Example 2: Funny, Irreverent, Enthusiastic, Casual: One of our security signs in your front yard tells robbers, “Don’t even think about it!”

Tone Profile Example 3: Serious, Casual, Respectful, Enthusiastic: We deeply care about every patient. At our medical practice, we don’t just treat diseases; we treat individuals. You’re our most important priority.

After determining the dimensions (for instance, funny and casual), you could refine it even further into specific tones, like quirky or playful.

But what if you are having trouble deciding which dimensions to go with? Wondering, perhaps, how to choose the voice and tone of your brand? It’s time to do a little undercover work: figure out what language your target audience is speaking. Pay attention to how they communicate on forums, what articles they share on social media, and what language relevant conference speakers use.

If your writing is more on the peer-to-peer side, casual writing with a few jokes can be appropriate. If that’s too bold for your situation, use friendlier language and a less official tone.

Example: “Check out our FAQs” (friendly) vs. “Refer to our FAQs” (formal)

You may have noticed that at Contenteam’s personal blog, we err on the side of friendly and enthusiastic – but when the situation calls for it, such as when we’re creating press releases, we take a formal, matter-of-fact tone.

Do: Evaluate Your Tone

Maybe you think your editorial team is publishing content that’s friendly or empowering or sophisticated or authoritative or… (the list goes on and on). But how do you know for sure? This is where product-reaction testing comes in.

One excellent method is to use Microsoft Reaction Cards, which consists of 118 product reaction words (although we recommend shortening the list). It’s filled with adjectives, some positive and some negative. Some of the tone of voice options found on the list include annoying, appealing, confident, empowering, frustrating, inviting, optimistic, rigid, and trustworthy. When product-reaction testing, remove any words that are only relevant to performance or functionality, such as “slow,” “time-saving,” and “responsive.”

Include these words in an online survey placed after your IT content. Analyze the results to determine if the participants’ chosen tone words match up with your target tone profile. For instance, let’s say you really want to come across as funny and respectful. If lots of respondents pick “humorous,” then you know you’re on the right track.

Conversely, if participants chose “snarky,” that’s a sign that you need to adjust your tone a bit. Snarky is kind of humorous, but it’s definitely not fulfilling the “respectful” aspect of your desired tone of voice!

It can also help to ask users to rate tone indicators on a 5-point scale, for example: not funny at all (1 star), slightly funny (2 stars), moderately funny (3 stars), very funny (4 stars), extremely funny (5 stars).

Real-Life Examples

Let’s look at a company that’s really got its brand’s tone of voice together: Starbucks. They have highly public tone of voice guidelines, and one area that really stands out is “expressive” copy standards. Their goal is to present information about their products in a fresh, interesting, and relevant way, with the end goal of making the user smile. When possible, content creators are encouraged to tell a passionate coffee story. And, boy oh boy, have they succeeded!

Starbucks makes connections with their readers, sharing the stories behind coffee: from their “Notes From the Cupping Room” to their “Meet the Barista” series, the brand has made a name for itself as passionate coffee-makers who provide an above-and-beyond consumer experience.

Now, what about an actual IT company? For this example, we’d like to take a look at Atlassian, a software development company with over 180,000 clients, 2.6 million community members, and 5,000 employees. Their website’s home page immediately shows Atlassian’s unique tone of voice: casual and enthusiastic.

They start off by greeting site users with “G’day,” which is pretty much as casual as it gets. They use contractions throughout the text, further solidifying their casual tone – and their passion shines through phrases like “we’re serious about” and “amazing.”

But this isn’t just surface-level wordplay to draw in visitors. As you explore Atlassian’s website, you’ll notice that they use a consistent tone of voice. For instance, let’s hop on over to their Company page. When scrolling through the page, I was impressed by this particular section:

We’ve got passionate words like “empower,” “drive”, and “inspire.” And, again, we’ve got that very casual, youthful attitude with “We :heart: teams” and “Don’t #@!% the Customer.” The latter made me laugh out loud; I don’t think I’ve ever seen an allusion to cursing on a software development website before.

Obviously, this type of language isn’t going to be everybody’s cup of tea. For Atlassian to have chosen this direction for tone of voice, I’d imagine that their target audience consists of young, progressive entrepreneurs who are tired of stuffy corporate culture.

But, remember how I said earlier that different tones of voice could be applied to various forms of content? For instance, we wouldn’t want to write a press release and a blog post the same way? Atlassian understands this quite well, as their press releases are written in a formal, matter-of-fact manner.

Summing Up: 10 Takeaways for Improving Your IT Tone of Voice

Go undercover and study your target audience. Figure out what tone of voice appeals to them.
Choose the dimensions of your tone of voice, then narrow it down into specific vibes.
Use product-reaction testing to validate your tone.
Create a tone guide for your editorial team.
Use different tones when the situation calls for it (e.g., a blog post vs. a press release)
Only use jargon when the audience is “in-the-know.”
Cut out buzzwords!
Don’t stuff your content with keywords.
Write for the reader! Aim to produce informative content & bring something new to the table.
Consider partnering with a tone of voice marketing and content creation company.

But, wait! We didn’t talk about point #10 yet, have we? I’ll go ahead and fix that right now! Do you want well-written, SEO-friendly content that’s aligned with your marketing strategy and desired tone of voice? This is where we come in: Contenteam is a content creation team, complete with in-house editors, proofreaders, and multiple language departments.

Our priority is to create selling texts that deliver value to the reader and align with your brand. We work with large volumes of text – so you don’t have to worry about hiring on your own team and training them on style standards. Simply send us your requirements, and we’ll take it from there!

Interested in learning more? Shoot us a note, and I’ll be happy to chat with you.

Сообщение Tone Matters: How to Use Tone of Voice to Improve Your IT Content and Boost Sales появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

B2B Content for IT Companies: How to Create a Full-Fledged Corporate Blog

Victoria Michael — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 09:09:00 +0000

Blogging is a phenomenal way for technology companies to generate organic traffic, increase their B2B leads, and establish themselves as industry leaders. According to a study from Hubspot, B2B companies that publish 11+ blog posts per month get nearly 300% more traffic than companies that publish 0-1 posts in the same timeframe. Let’s examine why:

When you start a B2B tech blog, you’ll get to inject relevant keywords into your site in a natural, non-spammy way.
Google loves fresh content, and blogs refresh your site with content regularly.
Social signals impact your search engine rankings, and a blog skyrockets opportunities for social media activity.
Blogs with quality content attract quality inbound links

So, if you aren’t prioritizing your B2B marketing blog (or if you haven’t launched one yet – gasp!), this is your sign to start! But before you assemble an editorial team and start churning out content, I’d recommend reading up on the best ways to craft B2B blog content.

B2B vs. B2C Blog Content – Is There a Difference?

You see, marketing to a business is waaaaay different than marketing to a consumer. Either way, you’re selling to a human being – but that human will change their decision-making processes depending on whether they’re purchasing for themselves or as a business representative.

In past articles, I’ve written about using emotional hooks, storytelling, simple language, and consumer-centric principles; however, that is mostly relevant to B2C marketing. When an executive is making a business decision and choosing between two products, they likely won’t be swayed by emotional elements – especially if they’re very familiar with marketing tactics. Instead, they’re going to look at the cold, hard facts.

Now, this doesn’t mean that your B2B content marketing needs to be boring! In fact, if your content is bland, boring, or forgettable, it will harm you in the long run, so you still need a solid grasp of how to create engaging texts. You just need to focus a little less on emotions and instead appeal to the reader’s logic.

Setting Goals

Please, please, please don’t jump straight to content creation without clearly defining your goals! Otherwise, you’ll waste loads of time and resources on guessing what to post. Three common goals include:

Thought leadership. If you’re a B2B company that offers highly technical services or unique products, it will benefit you to become an authority in relevant niche topics. As a thought leader, you’ll be able to answer prevalent questions your target audience has. You’ll need copywriters with strong technical knowledge, but it’s well worth it. By answering difficult questions, you’re able to build your image of authority in a specific industry, therefore encouraging your target audience to trust you – and do business with you.

Brand awareness. When I think about B2B blogs with this goal, Hubspot, Copyblogger, and Buffer come to mind. To become a household IT name, you have to go beyond just publishing simple blog posts; instead, you need to explore all kinds of tactics – from creating behind-the-scenes videos, publishing free ebooks, interviewing experts in the field, participating in virtual events, and so on.

Customer service/community building. One great way to keep your existing customers happy is to publish content that helps them use your product better. You’ll need to learn their pain points, listen to their questions, and create content that addresses their challenges. By creating this sort of resource, you’re also developing a community around your product.

Creating Reader Personas

You need to figure out who you want to attract to your blog so you can create tailored content. Here are some questions that can help you develop a persona and then craft content accordingly:

What is the reader’s job?
What industry do they belong in?
What skills do they need in order to do their job?
What are their biggest challenges?
What are they likely searching on Google?
What tools can help them do their job better?
Are they already a part of your B2B portal?
What topics will help them develop their career?
What social networks or groups are they part of?

Discovering Topics of Interest

That same Hubspot study mentioned earlier found that 93% of B2B purchases begin with an online search. You need to apply a strong SEO strategy to your content so it will actually show up in those searches.

When selecting keywords and topics for your articles, you might be tempted to focus on your product features; however, the vast majority of your audience is searching for product benefits. So, it is really effective to write blog content that uncovers, discusses and solves audience pain points.

Of course, to do that, you’ll first need to research the challenges that your audience is experiencing; this can be done through:

Viewing existing research publications
Interviewing your existing buyers
Browsing social media accounts and forum discussions

Write content that showcases your solution to these challenges, using keywords when possible.

Let’s look at DataDog, a B2B SaaS provider. I love how they title their blog posts! There are 2 parts to most of their titles: (1) a benefit that customers want and (2) the DataDog feature that fulfills the need.

It’s clear that DataDog has done plenty of research into its target audience’s pain points & used that data to create a blogging strategy.

Developing a B2B Tone of Voice

Earlier, I mentioned that B2B content needs to be written differently than B2C – mainly that there should be more of a focus on logic and tangible benefits rather than emotional draws. HOWEVER! This doesn’t mean that your content should be dry and boring – or that uniqueness doesn’t matter.

When you write like other B2B companies, you’re essentially telling your readers that your products are like everybody else’s. That’s the opposite of what you want! It’s important to develop a compelling B2B tone of voice that fits your brand – and then implement it consistently across your posts.

Take, for instance, Mailchimp. In their Voice and Tone guide, they outline that all of their copy is:

Plainspoken. They don’t use upsells, hyperbolic language, or over-promises. Fluffy metaphors and cheap plays on emotion are never used.
Genuine. Mailchimp’s copy relates to customers’ challenges and strengths, speaking to them in a warm, familiar, and accessible way.
Translational. In their words, they demystify B2B-speak, making complex subjects look simple.
Full of dry humor. They prefer to use humor that is subtle and straight-faced, yet not condescending.

Exchanging Value for Contact Details

Once you’ve gathered traffic to your blog, you want visitors to take the next step – entering contact details to learn more about your company. One great way to nurture readers down the B2B sales funnel is by offering a “next step” – perhaps a White Paper, eBook, demo, or webinar that’s related to the content they just read.

However, writing a CTA button for “next steps” is more difficult than it seems! Writing generic text like “Sign up to download an eBook on xxxxxx” simply won’t cut it. Where’s the creativity? Where’s the pull? Instead, you need to create a compelling case for your downloadable content – just because it’s free doesn’t mean the reader will want it.

Bolding this because it’s important! The best CTA buttons don’t look like blatant ads. Instead, they’re presented as a path towards valuable information discovery.

The CTA button below, for instance, doesn’t try to sell any service – in fact, it doesn’t focus on the business at all! The button is solely focused on what the reader stands to benefit: valuable knowledge on SEO.

Employing Professional B2B Blog Writers

Writing B2B content is difficult – you need to strike the right balance between engaging and factual while staying consistent with your brand’s tone of voice. And, to make things more complicated, writing IT texts is pretty challenging on its own.

So, what do you do if you don’t have an editorial team that’s up to the task? That’s where we come in! Our B2B blog writing service covers the entire process – keyword research, information gathering, writing, fact-checking, editing, and proofreading. We have specialized IT writers on our team, and we’re well-versed in creating IT content. All you have to do is share your vision with us, and we’ll work to make it a reality.

Interested in learning more? Let’s chat about it!

Сообщение B2B Content for IT Companies: How to Create a Full-Fledged Corporate Blog появились сначала на Contenteam - Multilingual Copywriting Service.

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7 Ways To Create a More Appealing Marketing Strategy for an IT Company

Table of Contents

Market Research: Development and IT

Strategies for Promoting Remote Development Teams and Agencies

Contextual Advertising

Website Promotion

Social Media and Targeted Advertising

Guest Posting

Catalogs and Business Review Websites

Email Marketing

Crowd Marketing

Marketing Trends for IT in 2022

Examples of Successful Development Teams: What They Did Right

Summary: Marketing Plan For an IT Company

Cracking The STORYTELLING Code in Content

7 Astonishing Formats to Cover in a Blog for an IT Company

Table of Contents

What Should You Blog About?

1. Case Studies

2. Success Stories

3. Niche Articles With a Clear Agenda

4. Industry News

5. Press Releases

6. Dynamic Presentations

7. White Papers

In Conclusion

FAQ

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Table of Contents

What Is White Paper Writing, and Why Is It Needed?

What's the Difference Between a White Paper and an E-book?

Killer White Paper Examples

Google Cloud Platform

Hyperledger

Cisco

Zendesk

How to Prepare a TOR for a White Paper

How to Collect Data

1. Your Own Research

2. Authoritative Sources

Tips for Data Collection

How to Write a White Paper

Creating an Outline

Choosing a Title

Crafting an Introduction

Providing an Overview

Tackling the Body

Give a Conclusion

List the References

Errors to Avoid

Formatting and Design Tips

How to Promote a White Paper

Collecting Leads

Pro Tip: To increase conversion, provide a material preview or add automatic import of data from social networks.

Website Ad Blocks

External Promotion

Summed Up

Trust Your White Paper to the Experts!

White Paper Writers Wanted

FAQ

Why are interviews important when writing a white paper?

What does a white paper look like?

How to write a technical white paper?

How long should a white paper be?

How To Write and Promote a Case Study + Best Examples

Table of Contents

What Is a Case Study?

Who Needs To Write Case Studies

Challenges of Writing Case Studies

How To Do a Case Study With Prominent Results

Goals

Topic and Format

Client

Product Knowledge

Significant Increase in The Main Metrics

Popular Brands

Dissatisfied Customers of Your Competitors

Industry

Client’s approval